Social and economic exclusion'

Published : Oct 21, 2011 00:00 IST

D. Raja: The gulf between the rich and the poor is widening. - V. SREENIVASA MURTHY

D. Raja: The gulf between the rich and the poor is widening. - V. SREENIVASA MURTHY

Interview with D. Raja, national secretary, CPI.

THE Left parties by and large do not expect a paradigm shift in the Approach Paper and are cynical about the claims of inclusive growth. D. Raja, national secretary of the Communist Party of India, spoke to Frontline on some of their concerns. Excerpts:

The Approach Paper claims that the economy has made a transition to a higher and more inclusive growth path. Do you agree with this?

The government wants to increase the GDP to 9.5 per cent. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government has been moving towards a neoliberal paradigm of economic development that puts a question mark on the relevance of the Planning Commission itself. When the Plan process started, there was an objective to mobilise investment by the state to build agriculture, infrastructure, both physical and social infrastructure, with a view to ending poverty and generating employment. When planning started, the participation by the private sector was less and the state had to mobilise capital for investment.

Since the 1990s, the government has been pushing the private-public partnership [PPP] model; earlier they used to talk about having joint sector partnerships. This has led to a strain in the planning process itself. The role of the Planning Commission needs to be re-examined, especially if the Indian state has to remain a welfare state addressing the concerns of the poorer, weaker sections and building the economy as a self-reliant and sustainable one.

The Approach Paper argues that a 9 per cent growth rate was necessary to generate employment opportunities, reduce poverty, finance social sector programmes and enable inclusiveness.

India is a signatory to the Millennium Development Goals, and the Planning Commission claims that some of them have been achieved, but they are yet to spell out what they have achieved. The MDG says poverty needs to end in India by 2015; it is impossible for India to achieve this. In China's case, they have asked for more time and said that 2020 would be a realistic target. In our case, neither does the country have the confidence to give a time frame for the eradication of poverty, nor does the Planning Commission say what it has done in this regard.

India has the largest number of illiterates in the world; our gross enrolment ratio is less than the global average. The Eleventh Plan focussed on that but little happened. The Twelfth Plan lays down some targets but how will they achieve this? By bringing PPP in higher education? Even the targets for health do not explain how they plan to allocate 2.5 per cent of the GDP in the next five years. We are seeing that unemployment is on the rise; the Approach Paper admits this, and that industrial production, manufacturing, has declined and the service sector is facing a crisis.

The Prime Minister talked about the adverse impact of globalisation, but if that is so, is the government prepared for a midterm review or course correction? Some authors have warned that if the global recession continues, it will lead to another Depression, similar to the Great Depression. The Indian economy withstood the impact of recession as we had strong public sector industries, banks and institutions. Instead of strengthening these, the Prime Minister talks about finance sector reforms. With this approach, one cannot have faster sustainable growth.

Does it mean that you do not expect too much out of this Approach Paper despite the inclusiveness of approach it claims and the widespread consultations undertaken?

On the contrary, a kind of social and economic exclusion is under way. Dalits and the tribal people are completely excluded from mainstream economy. The gulf between the rich and the poor is widening. The Scheduled Caste Sub Plan and Tribal Sub Plan are not being implemented; nor are adequate funds required for the S.C. and the Tribal Sub Plan being allocated regularly by the Centre and the States. These funds are supposed to be non-lapsable.

What [Jawaharlal] Nehru called as modern temples of modern India, the public institutions that were created as an outcome of the planning process, are now being abandoned. The government wants to blame external factors when it says that the Twelfth Plan is being crafted in a non-benign and uncertain environment.

The planning process has to deal with all micro and macro concerns. The mess that the government finds itself in is because of its neoliberal reform paradigm. How can global factors be held responsible?

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